


Until Next Time

by NotASpaceAlien



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Gen, Pre-Strex Kevin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-29 07:38:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5120342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotASpaceAlien/pseuds/NotASpaceAlien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kevin finds out what it feels like to have an eye sewn shut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Until Next Time

**Author's Note:**

> I actually wrote this before "Triptych" was released so it's cool that it kinda predicted it but also now some stuff doesn't match canon v.v  
> On tumblr at http://not-a-space-alien.tumblr.com/post/124443706240/holy-wow-i-wrote-a-night-vale-fanfic

“Until next time, Desert Bluffs.”  His voice was shaking, but he forced it under control.  “Until next time.”

Failed.  He had failed.  He knew that now, and he knew it because he could see StrexCorp’s people all over Desert Bluffs, and he could hear his neighbors screaming.  And because he could see a group of people, all smartly dressed in practical business casual, in the doorway of his studio, the door still bent and discarded where it had fallen as they took it off its hinges.

He had put a sign on it that said “Please do not disturb!  ♥”  Maybe he ought to have looked up how barricades worked. 

He clicked the button on the microphone into the OFF position; the ON AIR sign flickered out.

“Kevin,” said the person at the forefront of the group from StrexCorp, a woman, with a very large and important-looking name badge that said “Lauren.”  “You’re being very…uncooperative.”

Kevin crossed his arms.  He continued to watch the last remnants of the rebellion fizzling out across town.   “I’m afraid so, Miss Lauren,” was his response.

She clucked her tongue disapprovingly.  “This won’t do, you know.  Productivity has dipped almost to record lows since you started your, erm…broadcast.”

“Good.”  He had to make an effort to keep himself from flinching as he saw StrexCorp agents breaking down the door to his own apartment. His girlfriend was long gone, of course, but he had no idea where she had gone.

“Why don’t we fix this, hm?  It’s not too late.  We can find a way to get your productivity back up!”

Kevin was about to yell that they would have to physically drag him out of his studio before he would agree to anything they planned, but the protest died in his throat when he saw they intended to do just that—and worse.

The next few minutes passed as a series of impressions more than a logical sequence of memories:  Violence, his fist connecting with _someone’s_ jaw—not Lauren’s, unfortunately—the sensation of being held down, dragged, Lauren’s grating and sunny voice saying not to worry, we’ll get your productivity back up, don’t worry, Desert Bluffs will be up and running again in no time, and you can even have your radio show back—

A needle in his eye, his third eye, white hot pain blotting out his mind, erasing the images he was seeing of Desert Bluffs, breaking his link to the people, warping the voice he had used to coordinate the rebellion.

Someone was screaming.  Whoever it was must be in terrible pain.  Someone was screaming very close to him.

More pain next. All he could see was blood.  His teeth ached.

Silence, buzzing of fluorescent lights.

Shaking, he grabbed onto the corner of some piece of furniture—a desk, he thought—and pulled himself up.  The vision of his third eye—his mental mural of Desert Bluffs—was gone, replaced by a visage of gore, viscera, pulsing organs, slimy membranes, soft, spongy tissue expanding and contracting in death throes—

He screamed again, and this time he knew it was himself screaming.  All he could see was blood.

The vision in his other two eyes began to clear up after a few moments, but it was dim, and he had to wince, as though there were a very bright light source dissolving all the shapes in the room.

He couldn’t open his eye.  When he tried, he was rewarded with the sensation of his eyelid pulling against something keeping it in place, and a shrieking, stabbing pain washing over him, the blood in his mind’s eye pulsing in rhythm with it.

He was blind. No, not blind.  His shin banged on the table, and he fell again, the white-hot-lit room spinning as he did so, and he felt his jaw crack against the floor, and was it possible for teeth to hurt this badly, his teeth _hurt_ —

All he could see was blood, and he heard screaming faintly, not his own this time, and not with his audible hearing:  it was the death rattle of the town of Desert Bluffs, and his third eye was dying with it.

Everything hurt, and his vision was filled with blood, and he was starting to panic, because he couldn’t _see_ , he couldn’t get the pain to _stop_. 

“Kevin?” He felt a hand on his arm.

He lashed out instinctively, felt his hand tear into someone, _hard_ , felt a warm, sticky, substance rolling down his arm, heard an exclamation of pain, the _thump_ of a body falling to the floor, and his own hands tearing into someone of their own accord with strength he had not known he possessed, feeling hot and wet organs sliding past his skin, hearing himself making a moan, feeling the pain receding.

His vision began to clear.  He looked down.  He was elbow-deep in intern Brianna, her face frozen in a look of shock.

The blood all over him finally matched what he saw in his third eye, and the pain was dimming, and his teeth hurt, but he couldn’t pull them out, so he pulled Brianna’s out instead, and that made him feel a little better too.

And when he was done, he curled up under his desk, fetal-style, and wept, because the pain had started to come back as soon as he had finished dismembering the intern.

“Kevin?”

He looked up, mistily, and saw Lauren in the door, her hand on the knob.  “Are you feeling...like you’ve reached your full potential?”

He looked back down at the bloody handprints all over his pants, the puddle of blood on the floor, and remained silent.

“Are you going to be a good member of the StrexCorp family this time?

The only sound was the buzzing of the fluorescent lights.

“Kevin, your show is scheduled to start in 20 minutes, you know.”

He had just finished his show, hadn’t he?  His mind was beginning to fade, lost in fog.  It felt like there was a floodlight shining directly into his brain.  The room was beginning to swim in brightness again.

His show, right. He had…  Didn’t he have something to say to Desert Bluffs?  He couldn’t remember.  He didn’t know what Desert Bluffs needed to hear, because he couldn’t see them.

Oh.  He found some instructions on his desk.  They were under Brianna’s intestines, but they were mostly still readable, and he felt like he could manage to do that at least. He couldn’t start the show late, after all, not even if he was sick.

Sick…  Was that it?  Yes, he felt sick, but he couldn’t remember why…

The squish of organs under his shoes was oddly comforting, and he found himself beginning to muster back some of his old cheer.  He had to push a hand out of the way so he could roll his chair back over to the desk.

He flicked the button on the microphone to ON, and he managed to suppress the tremor in his voice as he began.  “Good afternoon, Desert Bluffs.  We have a new sponsor today, as I’m sure you’re aware…”

* * *

No one in the new version of Desert Bluffs was ever quite sure what had happened to Kevin.  He sounded much the same as ever on the radio, except that it took him a while to build himself back up to how cheerful he had been before the StrexCorp takeover.  Most of them knew, silently, that it was punishment for leading the citizens' rebellion against Strex, and that it was to ensure it didn't happen again.  It had the intended effect.  Those interested in rebelling came to Kevin the same as they had before, except this time they didn't come back out again.  And slowly the memory of peace faded, and everyone began to think that maybe, the walls of the radio studio were supposed to have been red all along...  



End file.
